From the mind of CLP: Outback Odyssey - Mini Mawson 2 - Day 3

Another long day to look forward to, which had me extremely concerned because my knee wasn't getting any better. Once again, loaded up with Voltaren and hope that I wouldn't finish in the sag wagon.

Long trail out into the distance

After packing up our gear we headed out, initially on the highway until we reached a turn off to continue our journey along the Bundaleer channels. Once again, this was a really nice section with nice gentle gradients and nice farmland surrounding us. As well as the channel itself, we saw yet more old school engineering with a massive aquaduct about 50 metres above our heads which was connected to the channels.

Once again, Miss V and I took a road option that was presented to us where it was know that some local farmers had ploughed the trail and planted crops. We made pretty good time along here, with me on the front, despite my painful knee, tapping out a tempo until reaching our morning tea stop. Ahead of us, was the steepest climb of the day, and possibly our entire trip, heading up to the top of the Never-Never Range. Looking back from where we came we were treated to some awesome scenery and also a view of other riders still struggling up the climb.

From the top of the Range we dropped down towards the Bundaleer Forest. After lifting the stupidly heavy bike over the gate we were treated to some beautiful scenery as the trail twisted and turned through the forest. Apparently it's fairly easy to get lost in the Bundaleer forest, but fortunately the group we were with managed to find our way through without too much drama.

Exiting the forest we had a mostly downhill run into the very pretty township of Laura. Once again, I was struggling with knee issues, with both knees now feeling the pressure. In my head i figured I had one more day to get through, and I'd be good to go home. We rolled into Laura after being out for about 7 1/2 hours, covering 80km. We set up in the local caravan park, showered up and waited for dinner.

For dinner the local community put on a big spread of food, which included pumpkin soup, Chicken Casserole with dumplings, apricot chicken, satay chicken and curry chicken. With Laura being the home of Golden North Ice Cream, there's no prizes for guessing what was for dessert!

Strava Data - Day 3